


A Map With No Key

by Rosage



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Epistolary, F/M, For best results imagine a Lisa Frank diary, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/pseuds/Rosage
Summary: Aisha chronicles her imprisonment in a diary without dates.





	A Map With No Key

It vexes me that I can’t date these entries. Even the moon phases work differently in this world. I tried to track their patterns for a time, but it is as if they switched directions to spite me. Sometimes, a second moon appears altogether, like it needed more company than the stars. 

More convenient is the ability to breathe underwater—or rather, not need to—without expending energy on a spell. I have probed deep into the waters and uncovered creatures that do not approach the light. Ones with any number of eyes, ones with tentacles, even ones with eyes on their tentacles. There is no end. I can still dive deeper, though I must take care not to get lost. Salim worries. We both do, but if we don't keep working, we will lose ourselves.

Our gate, as a prison, is brilliant at offering useful things while rendering them useless. For example, I can chronicle any number of discoveries nobody will ever read. I can write a thousand letters my little angelfish will never receive, and collect piles of shells I can never give him.

I can hope, because Salim and I can construct miracles, that none of that is true. 

If I could only give Asra one shell, it would be the rainbow one. His favorite color.

* * *

I had a scare today, if this still counts as a day. Well, Salim had a scare. We have so little left to lose, except each other.

I'm afraid I dove too deep. On the cusp of too deep, or even my spirit wouldn't be standing here. I ventured near a whirlpool. It was underwater, and it pulled me in in every sense of the phrase, until I thought my lungs would cave. I had to reach for Salim with my magic. He is not such a bad swimmer as when we first met—not his fault, growing up in the desert, but how that man could flail! It still brings a smile to my face. Not when he's flailing because he's worried for me, however.

Days must have passed in the real world while we held each other. He finally calmed down enough to continue work. He's trying to design a way to cross the distance to our captive friends. I don’t know what pains me more—Chimes’ absence in my spirit, or the cries I only imagine reach me.

I must admit, I frightened myself. Not so much with the whirlpool as my own recklessness. As a mother, I learned to take every caution. I feel I am losing that part of myself, drop by drop, the longer I am separated from my child.

I must remain vigilant. This realm does not forgive mistakes.

* * *

With no pattern that I can see, Salim crafts me jewelry or carves out land for new hot springs, and presents it to me as a birthday gift. His mouth always quirks, but I know how anxious he is to make me feel special. How could I not? My love spoils me, the only woman in the world!

An exaggeration, maybe, but it makes his eyes soft.

I gather gifts for Asra, though I've given up on tracking the years that way. When I see him, I'll give him the lot, and we can laugh about how wrong the number is.

Sometimes, in my dreams, he is as small as when I last saw him, a little mop of hair that could fit in my arms. He's alone in a space I can't recognize, furnished with nets and pillows, or he's with another child on the beach. Sometimes he is taller, his jaw shaping itself like his father's while his mannerisms—somehow, in my absence—become more like mine. He climbs a tree to place a talisman in its branches.

I can't bear some of these images, but even more, I couldn't bear if they weren't real. Reality and imagination mean nothing in this world, but I have to believe he's out there—if not safe and happy, then at least clever and breathing.

Often, I tell him I love him. I hope he hears.

* * *

It was Salim's turn for a scare. Rather, it was mine.

He has not ceased trying to construct a way to travel. Each time we fail to find our friends, both our powers and spirits weaken. If we can cross the lands quickly enough, we may reach them in time.

Inventing has always been his whirlpool. He handed me a copper disk threaded with quicksilver, through which I let my magic flow. At first, the land rose around us, great plates of rock molding itself to his whim. But while my power drained, a veneer of sweat coated his skin, and the world wobbled. I could barely throw myself at him and summon a shield before the plates folded in around us.

The second moon came and went before he recovered. I knelt with his head in my lap and my fingers carding his hair, trying to put at least one thing in order.

He is back to tinkering, looking for a way to lessen the power needed for the construct. I correct his calculations while doing my own with variables I have to invent: how many times the rivers will change direction before he runs another test, how many gifts we'll give before we succeed, how many tears my family will shed when we are whole.

Again, two moons hang in the sky. I map the stars in search of a third.


End file.
